Better Than Before
by Best Things in Life
Summary: Laura has memories of her own, but few she wants to share.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Better Than Before

**Characters: **X-23, Gambit, Jubilee, Wolverine

**Summary**: Laura has memories of her own, but few she wants to share.

**Warnings**: self-harm, implied non-con (m/m)

**A/N:** This story takes place after the "Collision" story arc (the Daken issues) and during the "Touching Darkness" story arc (the Jubilee issues). Special thanks to mozzarellaroses for a wonderful beta job.

Better Than Before

1.

In a few minutes, they'll already be talking about the past. Gambit will cast a slant-eyed glance at Logan and take the salt shaker from next to his plate, wink once at Jubilee, and then hint, artfully, at the memories they share. _Do you remember when . . . ? _He'll grin, and Logan will pretend to be uninterested. _The time Scott got lost in Buffalo. The time Hank was on Montel. _He'll pull a smile from Logan yet. This ritual has already begun.

Laura realizes that this is Gambit's role. He is the keeper of long-cherished memories, a dutiful record-keeper of funny things. Perhaps he has always had this purpose. Perhaps this is why he has returned so many times to the X-Men, and why they have always taken him back.

"Did I ever tell you girls, did I ever tell you girls . . .?" Gambit leans forward and takes a piece of bread from the basket. Gives them his best indulgent-mother smile. "Did I ever tell you girls about when Logan and I quit smoking together?"

"You don't have to tell _me_," Jubilee says. "I remember. You were impossible to live with."

"We didn't quit together, LeBeau." Logan leans his back against the upright wooden booth. "_I_ quit. You couldn't. End of."

"Ah," Gambit says. "Wasn't quite so simple." He shifts his gaze to Laura and raises an eyebrow.

Laura knows that she's supposed to lean in, ask "what?" She's the one he's doing this for. She has none of these memories. The things that Gambit and Logan talk about when they're together—_the good times, the old days_—they all happened before she was around.

"Well," Gambit says, ignoring the fact that Laura hasn't asked him to go on, "get this. Apparently an ordinary nicotine fiend has no business bettin' a dude with a healing factor that he can quit smoking first."

"You must have gone on the patch twenty times," Logan acknowledges.

"And those things were fuckin' _expensive_."

"You cheated constantly. No willpower, Gumbo. Absolutely none."

"You," Gambit says, looking up, "were a lousy sponsor."

"We made a _bet_. It was a competition, not a twelve-step program."

Gambit raises both hands and looks at Laura and Jubilee. "You believe this guy? Where I come from, you help your buddy when he falls off the wagon. You don't take his money an' laugh as he pukes through the withdrawal."

Logan's laughing, but Jubilee just smiles. Laura remembers that she's supposed to react and also smiles. But she's keyed into Jubilee, who seems more distracted than she is.

And then they are reminiscing again, and Laura has already tuned out. _And then when Kitty said_ . . . _Remember when Jean_ . . .

Laura is her own record keeper. She has memories of her own, but none that she wants to share. Right now she knows only her most recent memory: two hours ago with Jubilee on the sidewalk, Jubilee against her neck, Jubilee clutching her shoulders and gripping her back. And the unexpected tirade that tumbled from her mouth afterwards: _I worked hard to be normal . . . couldn't accept the fact that I'd changed . . ._ It was all so strange, Laura thinks. But not really. Humanity always rears its head at the most inconvenient times.

* * *

><p>Paris is a place she could do without. It isn't that she's <em>unimpressed<em>. Or _difficult to please_. She admits that it's beautiful and different, that its low cityscape and winding medieval streets are things that everyone should experience at some time or another. But she preferred Madripoor, tropical and chaotic, a brand-new city built on an old slab of volcanic rock. And she misses the food. But she can't tell this to Gambit, who confessed to her that he hopes never to set food on Madripoorian soil again.

Back at the hotel, Laura slips into the bathroom before anyone else and takes off her jacket. She inspects her neck for traces of blood (doesn't need Gambit asking any more questions) and runs the water so she can wash her face. When she's finished, she turns the faucet and the light off and turns the doorknob gingerly before pushing open the door.

"Jesus, X," Jubilee gasps. She's standing on the other side of the door, her hand on the doorknob. "I didn't know you were in there. Try making some noise next time, okay? I'm the goddamn vampire, but you're the one who should wear a bell around your neck."

Laura stares for a moment. Nods. "Okay."

"No, I was just _joking_," Jubilee says. She smiles. "It's something people say. You're really stealthy. That's all I meant."

Jubilee is carrying a towel along with some shampoo and lotion. She catches X looking and holds up the bottle. "Appletini shampoo. Smell?" She pops open the cap. "I'll leave it in the bathroom for you to use tomorrow."

Laura takes the bottle and sniffs. So _that_ is the fragrance she smelled before when Jubilee's hair was pressed against her face. Laura has never used specially scented shampoos, not even when they were popular among the girls at Utopia. She always washes her hair with whatever is cheapest.

She closes the cap and hands the bottle back to Jubilee.

Jubilee smiles broadly for a moment, and Laura thinks she's about to say something—and then she realizes that Jubilee just wants to get into the bathroom. It's an awkward moment that X brings to an abrupt end by stepping aside.

"Sweet dreams, Laura. Can't wait for what we're going to do tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Shopping," Jubilee says, closing the door just enough to still be poking her head out. "I cleared it with Remy and it's a total go. We're hitting the shopping district, no matter what Logan says." She gives a thumbs-up before closing the door completely.

Laura wanders back into the bedroom to find Logan already there. He's setting up a makeshift bed in the corner and Laura knows, with a brief sense of disappointment, that this is the way things are going to be now. When she was traveling with Gambit, they lived side by side; they shared their things and were hardly apart, and this was the first time—she was certain of this—that someone was close to her because he wanted to be. But then she cut Gambit and she cut herself and proved that she couldn't be trusted to share small quarters with someone so vulnerable. Now Logan is here to monitor her. With Logan, she can't run away or sneak off to hurt herself.

"There you are," Logan says. He fluffs his pillow and sits down on the bed.

She clears her throat and sits on the bigger bed, then bends over to unbuckle her boots. There's a conversation she needs to have with Logan—about Madripoor, about Daken, about the things that happened at Utopia before she left.

But she doesn't want to have it now. She half expected him to bring it up during their first conversation on the roof—_So I hear you met Daken_. But he didn't. And hasn't.

"Don't you wanna get changed?" Logan says.

She glances down at her pants and top. "I will take off my things when I get into bed. I have no—" She realizes all too late that she has admitted something abnormal for someone her age: she likes to sleep nude.

She waits for Logan's censure. Instead he smirks. "You like to travel light, huh? Can't say I blame you. Never liked to bring a bunch of shit along myself. Clothes weigh you down." He leans back onto the bed. "Well, just go ahead and do your thing. I'm so tired I'm gonna be out when my head hits the pillow."

"Alright, Logan."

"Missed you, kid," he says suddenly. He scratches the back of his neck.

She smiles weakly. She missed Logan too, but she doesn't want to talk about it right now.

She moves away from the bed and steps toward the door. Logan turns his head and looks at her.

"I'm thirsty," she explains.

From the kitchen she sees that Gambit has bedded down on the sofa in the main room. He's sprawled out there, his hand around the remote, flipping through the stations. He glances up at her and grins, his face half-lit by the TV screen. He shifts into a sitting position, careful to keep his bandaged arm elevated above his heart. "Hey _petite_. You happy to see Logan?"

She brings the glass of water to her lips and nods.

"Yeah, thought you'd be. Looks great, don't he? A lot better than the last time we saw him."

She sets the glass down. "He does."

"Listen," Gambit says, arching his back so that he's looking at her. "He's glad to be here with you. Told me himself. Big old load off his mind to know you're okay. He may not always show it, but you're first an' foremost."

As he talks, Laura watches and listens. Gambit's eyes are fixed on hers, steady and unblinking. The words he speaks are about one thing, but he's talking about another—it's why he's projecting confidence while hedging, just slightly. He's saying _Logan feels this way_ but what he really means is _don't tell Logan what happened. _

She wonders why it's okay—so perfectly reasonable and normal—for Gambit to have secrets from Logan, from everybody, while her life is always on display. But she will keep his secrets. She won't tell Logan about what Gambit did—that he went to Daken for her, that he made a deal.

Jubilee pads into the room and the spell is broken. "Remy," she says, "have you seen my slippers? You took them, didn't you?"

He stoops over and retrieves two slippers from underneath the coffee table. "You got big feet, but not big enough for me to wear your slippers, _petite_."

Jubilee shuffles into her slippers and tells him that he needs to change the channel to something not so horribly dubbed. Laura leaves the room, certain that no one's seen her slip away, until Jubilee calls out "Goodnight, Laura," and leaves it at that.

* * *

><p>Humanity reared its head at the most inconvenient times, but if you went looking for it, you found it. Same thing could be said for Daken. He wasn't someone you wanted to follow, but if you needed to catch him, you would. And then you would wish you'd never found him at all.<p>

She hated to admit this, but Gambit had been right. When they were looking for Daken, laying over in Singapore and making arrangements to get to Madripoor, Gambit pulled her aside. "This is no good," he told her once, his voice low and quiet. They were outside a noisy restaurant and it was dark. "Bein' half in and half out like this? This way will get you killed. It won't lead you to where you want to go, anyway. Take it from me, Laura."

She wasn't swayed. She needed to stop Colcord.

"You want to be good?" he said. "Then just be good. Let's go home. Back to San Francisco."

She couldn't. If she didn't kill Colcord, then who would? She told Gambit as much. She told him she didn't have a choice.

"You always have a choice," he said. "Walk away from this. Know that you can't stop every bad person with a hard-on for mutant DNA from fucking up the universe. If it ain't Colcord, it'll be somebody else."

"But right now it is Colcord. And I know how to find him." In that warm alley, on that spring night, she made the choice that would take them both into a situation from which they'd have to extract themselves.

"_Dieu_," he whispered. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Okay. Okay. Sit tight. I'll call in some favors."

"You do not have to come with me if this makes you uncomfortable."

In the dark, he leveled his gaze. "I'm _not _leaving you." And then, the words that would seal them forever: "I'm never letting you go."

* * *

><p>The night before they reached Madripoor, Gambit got sick. He had eaten something, something bad—probably the crabmeat salad. She'd eaten it too, but she had not gotten sick. "My healing factor assimilates toxins," she explained, and from his cot he groaned, "Not fair."<p>

"You should have known better," she told him. "You have traveled internationally many times before. You should know that certain foods carry a higher index of microbial anomalies."

He groaned again.

They were docked on a small island off the coast of Madripoor and Laura wondered—she couldn't help but wonder—if he had done this to himself deliberately. Just so that they would miss their window to catch Daken and Colcord. Certainly he should have known not to eat crabmeat!

But then when she saw him, pale and sweating and struggling to get to the bathroom in time, she understood that her suspicions were unfair and ungrateful. He was very sick. Worse, he was scared.

"You will be fine," she reassured him. "It is just food poisoning."

"Folks have died of less, _petite_." His nose was running.

"You are not going to die."

"If you say so."

She pulled her hair back from her face and sniffed once. "I know this sickness. You are strong and it will pass."

He closed his eyes and relaxed. His relief was palpable.

"I will make tea," she said. "You must stay hydrated."

"What kind of tea?" he said.

"Chamomile. It will settle your stomach." She left his side and went into the kitchenette where she found the kettle for boiling water. "Hisako makes it," she explained. "It is especially therapeutic when one is menstruating."

"In that case I'll drink the whole pot."

He sat up when she brought the tea to him, held the cup to his lips. "_Petite_," he said. "Laura."

She crouched down beside him. She understood that he was trying to mark the occasion, to say something important. In this sense he was different from her, different from Logan. He liked to be _demonstrative_. He offered her his heart, and often. "Sorry for what happened," he said.

He was talking about the woman from Singapore. "It was none of my business," she said. And meant it.

"No," he said. "You were right. It's wrong to do things like that." He shifted his weight against the wall. "Sit down, Laura. Take a load off."

She sat on the edge of the cot, her hands braced against her knees. She didn't want to remember the fight; it was the worst fight they'd had. Much worse than any fight she'd ever had with Logan. She always fought with Logan but never with Gambit.

Before they left Singapore, Gambit had slipped away from the hotel room for a few hours. Laura was supposed to be sleeping, but when she awoke to find him missing, she'd been worried. She left the room and followed his scent downstairs, to the bathroom of the hotel bar. He was there—he was with a woman.

He didn't know that she had seen.

When he returned to the room, she was awake and waiting, and waiting had enabled her to convert her shame into anger.

"Hey Laura," he said. He walked into the room and his eyes skimmed over her without lingering, and he smelled like sex, but he didn't seem cowed or embarrassed. "Thought you'd be asleep."

"Where were you?"

"Called in my favor. Got a phone number of an old _ami_ willin' to take us to Madripoor." He slipped a piece of paper from his pocket and laid it on the mahogany nightstand. "I'll call tomorrow."

She sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Madripoor's no good," he continued. "We need a plan. Can't just go in there guns blazing. Place is a hot mess right now. Real Armageddon-like." He paused. "Daken dialed a number, apparently. Not that people know who's behind it. But that's what's happening."

"Who was the woman?"

He glanced up but didn't seem surprised.

"You were with a woman approximately twenty-three minutes ago. The hotel bar restroom. Second stall on the right."

He took his money clip from his pocket and laid it on the nightstand. Cracked his knuckles. Cleared his throat. Then, in a voice so quiet it seemed to come from someone far away, he said, "I take my pleasures where I find 'em."

"That's not what happened," Laura said. "This wasn't about pleasure. You traded sex for information."

Gambit moved from the nightstand to the mini refrigerator in the corner. He bent over and opened it and took out a small bottle of something or other.

"You traded sex for information," Laura repeated—this time to herself. "Like . . . a prostitute."

"Hmm," Gambit said. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a sip. "Well, that's where you're wrong. Prostitution's illegal in Singapore. Very illegal. When money changes hands, then you've got a problem. But when all you're tryin' to do is comfort somebody because her brother's lost somewhere in Madripoor—"

"It's wrong," Laura said. She planted both feet on the floor and stood to face him. "You manipulated that woman. You let her think you could help her in order to get information."

"I didn't—I didn't do anything—"

"You _lied_," Laura said. She leaned in, and what she said was like something passing through her—like it was coming from her and from someone else all at the same time. "I know what you did. You let that woman think she could trust you, and then you had sex with her. You—you're like a whore."

Gambit turned sharply, slamming the bottle down on the table. "You listen to me," he said. He lifted his hand—not to surrender but to defend—and the gesture seemed unequivocal, completely un-Gambit-like. "I've done everything you wanted. You want Daken? You want Colcord on a silver platter? Well it don't just _happen_ all on its own, hon. You wanted to go down this path and I told you not to. This is what it looks like. This is how andouillette gets made. If it bothers you, then go away and come back when it's served."

"It's wrong," Laura said.

"It's sex!" Gambit jerked forward and the front of his jacket flopped open. "It's not _killing_!"

Laura stepped back.

And then Gambit was gone. He swiped the drink from the table and adjusted his jacket before leaving the room.

For minutes after he left, Laura stared at the carpet. She wasn't quite sure what had happened. The fight was so sudden and so unexpected, and Gambit had gotten angry so quickly—even-tempered, mellow Gambit who'd never so much as uttered a cross word. No one made Gambit angry. Except her, apparently. As she got into her bed, she wondered if he would come back or if she had infuriated him so much that she'd never see him again.

He came back an hour later and slipped into his bed. Said nothing. The next morning he was mellow and calm as always; nothing in his mood hinted at the previous night's events. The fight was like a violent storm that had passed over them both without doing any visible damage.

Until he got sick on the boat to Madripoor. And then he wanted to talk. Sprawled out on the bed, he slumped against the pillow and looked at her. "Sorry about that whole business, _petite_. But old habits are hard to break, y'know, and I got used to using certain assets . . . to get things. Sleeping with people, using sex like that—it's a shortcut I've often used to get the job done. Ain't right. You were justified in telling me what I didn't wanna hear."

She tucked her hands underneath her lap. She didn't want to talk about it.

"Being here, being your friend . . . makes me realize that I shouldn't take shortcuts anymore. That it's best to do the job right, even if it takes longer."

"Why?" she asked. What had he heard about her?

"Because it's all about choices. You don't blame other people for things, even though you could. I need to stop making excuses for myself. Shit, it's been a real lesson in humility." He rolled onto his side and grimaced a little.

Laura looked straight ahead and tensed up her shoulders. So maybe he _didn't _know about her. It hardly seemed possible; hadn't Logan told him? Logan had told other people so much about her. She was constantly surprised by the information he divulged. "I have no right to judge you," she mumbled. "I have also done bad things."

Gambit held up his hand as if to wave away her ambivalence. "We all have."

She was torn between two impulses: to tell him everything, or to let him believe she wasn't as bad as she was. She knew she should confess. _I have done things other than X-Force or my work for the facility_._ I was not just an assassin but a prostitute too. _But she knew that once the words tumbled from her, she would never be able to take them back. And perhaps Gambit would just feel worse for what he had done. He would understand why she had taken his actions so _personally_.

At this moment, he needed to feel better, not worse.

But beyond this, she sensed that he would not be able to comfort her in the way she wanted. She would say, _I was a prostitute—the worst kind_, and he would feel sad and shocked and angry on her behalf, and he'd say nasty things about pimps, and he'd say it wasn't her fault, and that she did what she had to do to survive, and that someday somebody would love her regardless of what she'd done.

She would tell Gambit later. After this Colcord thing was over.

That night, she lay in a makeshift sleeping bag she'd made from spare sheets and blankets. Gambit snored softly and the water lapped gently against the side of the boat, and she understood her real reason for not telling him the truth: because people hate in other people what they hate most about themselves. At that moment she thought of Logan and wondered what was happening to him. Then she wondered how all of this would end.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Jubilee's hand on her arm is something she's not expecting.

Laura has been standing in front of a shop window, staring at her own reflection—no, staring _into_ it. Looking at her face makes her think of Daken. There they are: the angles of his face. The shape of his mouth. The slope of his forehead. All the features that are hers are not really hers at all.

"X," Jubilee says, sidling up to her and touching her arm.

The touch makes Laura jump. She looks at Jubilee, whose hat and sunglasses and long-sleeved shirt make her look eccentric. It's cool outside but not cold; Jubilee's layered clothing makes her look like she's obsessive about avoiding sunburn.

"Jesus, sorry," Jubilee says. "I know it's hard to hear me coming and all. I didn't mean to make you jump."

"It is alright," Laura says. "I was just thinking."

Jubilee stares at her through her sunglasses. Smiles. "To block out the lame things they're talking about, right?" She tilts her head in the direction of Gambit and Logan, who are standing behind them. "God, give me a pair of lead earmuffs, really. Except that I'd look more ridiculous than I already do. But I can't stand to hear one more dumb story about the good old days."

Laura's gaze drifts to Gambit and Logan. The two men are in the middle of the sidewalk. Logan's slouching, hands in his pockets, and Gambit is leaning back on his heels. He glances up when a pretty woman walks by. They've spent most of the morning reminiscing, and Laura hasn't heard everything they've said—only most of it. _Remember the time Kurt got drunk and serenaded us with Journey's entire catalog? Remember when Jean set the kitchen on fire? _Then, the quiet laughter, the aw-shucks-guess-you-had-to-be-there punch-line that Laura doesn't understand.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the memories"—Jubilee lowers her voice—"but there's only so much bullshit revisionism I can take in one morning."

Laura tries to conceal her surprise. "But you were there for most everything that they're talking about."

"Yeah, that's the problem." Jubilee nods at the jewelry shop in front of them. "Let's go in here for a minute." She signals to Logan and Gambit that they're going inside and then takes X by the arm.

Inside the shop, Laura discovers that the necklaces and earrings are much, much too expensive for them. But she doesn't point this out.

Jubilee slips off her sunglasses and peers into an enclosed case of earrings. "Back then, things were just as loopy as they are now. Maybe even worse. Wrong-bad love triangles and just so much drama. Oh, look." She points to a pair of gold earrings with diamonds the shape of stars. "That's kind of cool."

Laura knows she should be looking at the rings or the necklaces—that she should be interested in the trinkets and accessories that entrance Jubilee—but she's too interested in what Jubilee is saying and, more importantly, in _how _she's saying it. Really, why does Jubilee care if Logan and Gambit misrepresent the past?

Jubilee spins the glass case to look at another row of earrings. "Take it from someone who was there. The good old days really weren't that good."

Laura clears her throat. Thinks about what she wants to say—and then what someone else in her position might say. "Maybe they know this and don't care."

Jubilee turns to her and arches an eyebrow as if to say, _really?_ It's like she's not taking Laura seriously.

And this makes Laura want to go on. "Maybe the past comforts them," she says. And then she feels like a fake, like she's parroting something another person might say. Really, she doesn't quite understand how the past might comfort anyone—hers gives her nothing but anxiety.

Jubilee slips a bracelet off the display holder. When she speaks again, her voice is halting and tight. "Must be nice to have such a selective memory."

Laura says nothing.

Jubilee inhales and then hesitates. She angles her body toward Laura. "Look X. I'm just . . . I'm just tired. I don't want you to think I'm always so cranky. Or entitled or something. 'Cause I'm not. I'm just, I'm tired of _it_."

"Logan's done a lot for you," Laura says. She feels a twinge of satisfaction. It's nice to be right for once.

And it feels nice because of what happened earlier that morning.

Laura had been in the kitchenette making toast; Gambit and Logan had been drinking coffee and mulling over sections of the newspaper. Jubilee had barreled in, taken one look at Laura, and exclaimed that she was wearing the same thing she'd been wearing the day before. "We _have_ to go shopping for X," she said firmly. And she was looking at Logan when she said it. Gambit said that might not be a bad idea because X had been wearing the same thing since the South Pacific, and Laura, who did not want new clothes, and who did not want anything but to unpuzzle the mystery of her kill list, said that her clothes were functional and clean. (She knew they were clean because she had washed them in Milan.)

And Logan gave her the once-over and said, "They look like they're gettin' ready to walk on their own, darlin'." And Jubilee and Gambit had laughed, and Laura had understood: they'd plotted this. This exchange had been rehearsed; this was all part of their plan to get Logan to take them shopping.

That's what Laura hates the most of all—the idea of being the butt of someone's joke, or a convenient smokescreen for someone's secret desires. It's why she doesn't miss Utopia. If Jubilee wanted to go shopping, why not just _ask_ Logan? Why put on such a show at X's expense? After all, Logan lets Jubilee do pretty much whatever she wants.

Laura looks at Jubilee and composes her thoughts. "Logan has put his life on hold to help you," she says. "You should be grateful. If he and Gambit want to talk about better times, then they can. I don't understand why you care so much."

"For Christ's sake, Laura." Jubilee slips the bracelet off her wrist and puts it back on the holder. "Will you quit playing dumb? You of all people know what Logan's like. And the rest of the X-Men too. I thought that we were on the same page, if nothing else."

Laura licks her lips. _What page would that be? _she thinks—and she almost says it. But then she thinks twice. This kind of passive aggressiveness doesn't come naturally to her—it's something she picked up from the other X-Men. It's Emma Frost; it's Nori. Other girls too. It's the shrug of the shoulders, the roll of the eyes. It's _I'm sorry you feel that way_ or _You can take it up with my advisor._ It served her well when she was sparring with Daken. _Maybe you're homesick for Romulus_.

But Jubilee isn't Daken. She isn't Emma Frost, either.

"After what happened last night," Jubilee says, "I thought we were at least going to be honest with one another. Or that we wouldn't play these little games, anyway."

"What do you mean?" Laura says, and Jubilee raises her eyebrow again like she cannot believe it, doesn't trust what Laura's saying. Laura can think only of Gambit—of how he had looked when she'd asked what he'd done for Daken. How he had doubted that she could be so naïve. _If you already know, then why are you asking?_ But Laura's not playing games. She just likes to have things spelled out.

"What do you mean what do I mean?" Jubilee says. "About last night? Or about playing games?"

"About what Logan's like."

"Oh." Jubilee pauses for a moment as if deciding whether or not Laura's question is honest. "You how he can be kind of . . . absentee, right? Well." She pauses again and looks down. "It's been a difficult year. Especially the last few months. It would have been nice to have him around a little bit more. Or to have him around before I really _needed _him to intervene." Jubilee's red-tinted eyes are softened by grief.

_Friend_, Laura thinks. Jubilee is a friend. She hasn't had a girl for a friend in a long time—she realizes that there is something different about the secrets girls share. She remembered her time with X-Force, with Domino, the only female member of the team she spent time with. Even then, Dom wasn't a peer. She merely tolerated Laura most of the time—only once in a while confiding in her.

_What Logan's like_. Laura thought back to a year ago. She was staying in Colorado then, living at Angel's house and spending a lot of time waiting and waiting. Fighting sometimes. Mostly waiting. One night, bored with her own thoughts and any diversion that books or TV might offer, she wandered into the sitting room. Domino was flipping through a magazine, her feet up on the coffee table.

She didn't look up. "Logan's not here."

"I know," Laura said, but she didn't walk away.

Now Dom did look up. She craned her neck to peer over the back of the sofa. She scanned Laura. Then, satisfied that Laura wasn't going to try anything weird, she turned back to her magazine.

"Do you know where he is?" Laura asked.

"Like he'd tell me."

Laura rubbed her hands together. An unconscious tick. A self-touch gesture meant to comfort. "Is he looking for Daken?"

Dom looked up again. Now she shifted to look at Laura, to reconsider her. "Probably." A pause. "How much do you know about Daken? Did Logan tell you?"

She shook her head. She knew about Daken because she couldn't _not_ know. How could anyone think that she was deaf to the whispers and the rumors? She knew what everyone else knew: that Daken was Wolverine's son, that he was a member of Osborn's Avengers, that he was masquerading as Wolverine. That he was bad.

What she didn't know was what she craved to know: how Daken had come to exist, how Logan thought of him. How he might be like her.

Dom continued to stare at her. "You shouldn't stress. You know, X, you should really talk to Logan about these things. Make him sit down with you and tell you what's going on." She turned around again and opened her magazine. "You have a right."

Now Jubilee glances down, and Laura senses that she's going to cry. _I know what you mean about Logan_, Laura wants to say, but she can't bring herself to admit out loud that she and Jubilee have more in common than predatory instincts. That they both need Logan and, in needing him, they know how he doesn't come through.

Jubilee swallows, seems to compose herself. "The X-Men are sort of famously fair-weather, but I always thought Logan was different. And Remy . . . ." She gives Laura a pointed glance. "Yeah."

"Gambit? What about him?"

Jubilee anchors her elbows to the counter. "Nothing. Forget what I'm saying."

Laura also leans against the counter. She counts the rows of rings inside the glass case. She wants to tell Jubilee about the woman in Singapore, the things that happened in Madripoor. She wishes she could just tell someone.

"Anyway, you're basically right. Logan's been there for me most of the time, which is more than I can say for other people. So you're right, I'm being a total bitch."

Laura clears her throat again. Jubilee's openness is something she's not used to. She knows that sometimes people insult themselves to get compliments, but it doesn't seem like Jubilee wants that right now. She's not sure what Jubilee wants from her at all.

Jubilee peers at her. "I don't want to make any assumptions, but I think I know how you feel. Logan's like, your dad, and it must seem like other things take up a good chunk of his time. Things like me, for instance. Time he should be spending with you."

"It's okay," she says. What she means is: _It's not your fault_. (How to say what she's really feeling? _The fact that Logan avoids me has nothing to do with you._)

"It's not okay," Jubilee says. "Look. I don't want you to think that I was like, _trying_ to monopolize Logan. I mean, maybe that's what it seems like, but it's not like that at all. But he should be closer to you. You know, maybe this is beside the point, but he really does care a lot about you. He talks about you all the time."

Laura says (can't not say), "Really?"

"He says all kinds of things about you. Like, that you're a crack shot and the top of your class and things like that."

Laura's curiosity fades; she wishes she hadn't asked. Of course Logan says those things. "Crack shot" and "good at school"—these aren't real compliments. Or maybe they are for ordinary people. But not on Utopia, where everyone's special and smart. But she doesn't tell this to Jubilee. To admit this would be to admit that Jubilee still doesn't know where she's coming from, that no one really knows her at all.

The store clerk strides up to them and asks them, not so patiently, if they'd like to make a purchase. In botched but understandable French, Jubilee says that they're on their way out. Then she steers Laura away from the counter and threads her arm through hers. "C'mon X. Let's brighten you up a little. You look very 1996. Not that there's anything wrong with 1996—I'm sure it was a good year. Though I don't remember—I guess we'll have to ask the guys." She takes Laura's hand and leads her back into the sunlight.

* * *

><p>She'd been hurting herself since Madripoor, but it took Gambit until Paris to figure it out. She felt bad that she lied to him; she felt worse that lying to him got easier. At a train station: <em>There was a long line for the bathroom<em>. In a hotel room: _I wanted to wait for my hair to dry_. There was always a new excuse. Each time she was careful to clean up after herself, to wipe away all the blood. Still, because her self-destructive binges were getting more frequent, she knew it was only a matter of time before she slipped up and did something stupid.

Maybe she wanted to get caught.

Each day the world rose to meet her, and then everything seemed to fall away. Beijing might as well have been Beirut. In Tel Aviv, Gambit bought her a kite and said they should go to the shore and try to fly it, and she smiled halfheartedly and hated him a little bit for trying so hard. Especially since they both knew what had happened in Madripoor. After that, what was the point of trying to be so normal? Gambit was trying to give her the childhood she never had—maybe the childhood he never had, either. And because neither of them had any idea of what it meant to be a kid, their performance felt forced. All these little gestures—kites and balloons and birthday cakes—were things they'd seen on TV shows or read in books.

On the beach the sunlight was intense, and the sea was a deep blue color. Laura raised the kite in the sky and let it catch the wind. It fluttered and dipped. She watched it for a little while, never quite in the moment, never as interested as she should have been.

Gambit sat on the sand about ten yards away, his legs sprawled out in front of him. She called to him, wanting to know if she was doing it right. He looked up at her, shielding his eyes, and when he did this she saw that he was crying.

"Gambit," she said, turning to face him.

He took his hand from his face and looked down. Breath hastening with tears, he wiped his eyes and then nose with the back of his hand.

She scrambled for a place to anchor the kite. She'd seen this in movies—when kids didn't want their kite to fly away they buried the spool in the sand. She bent over and quickly dug a hole. Then she looked for a rock to keep everything secure.

"I'm alright," Gambit said, raising his hand. "Don't pay any attention to me." He tried to laugh.

Laura finished burying the spool and stumbled to her feet, sprinting to fill the space between her and Gambit. Just as she reached him, she saw his face tilt toward the sky. She turned around to see that the spool had wrenched free from the sand. The wind carried the kite out to the sea.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

When Laura changes into her old X-Force uniform, she feels no wistfulness, no regret. Outside, the sun is slipping from the sky and the streets are busy with tourists. Night means that Jubilee doesn't have to hide anymore. Night means that they can go find the trigger scent under the cover of darkness.

In the room she's been sharing with Logan, she pulls on her gloves and unsheathes her left-hand claws. Everything still fits. Not that it wouldn't. She's had no growth spurt since she left the facility all those years ago, no pressing need to get new clothes or shoes, despite what Jubilee might think. Her height and weight are locked in. She's stagnant, dormant, turned off—maybe because of what the facility did to her (radiation treatments and everything)—but probably because of genetics. Logan obviously didn't have many growth spurts either.

There's a knock at the door. Logan enters and closes the door behind him.

"Oh wow. You're ready," he says. He's staring at her again—probably he came in here to make sure she wasn't cutting herself. During the last few days, she's rarely been alone. Gambit knocks on the bathroom door if he thinks she's been in there for too long and says he needs to borrow a razor. Even Jubilee dropped by her room late that afternoon. She smiled and then handed Laura her iPod. "I'm worried that you're going to think my favorite songs are cheesy, but oh well. This is what I always listen to before a mission. I thought maybe it would get your mind off everything."

Now Logan sits on the bed, his hands bracing against his knees. He looks up at her, watches as she adjusts her gloves and boots. "Kid," he says. "You don't have to come tonight."

_You don't have to come_, Laura thinks. Not to be confused with _you're not coming_. Not an order. (He's not giving her orders anymore.) She stoops to adjust her other boot buckle. "How much trigger scent do you think they have?"

He pauses. "I don't know. A lot, maybe."

"Then you need me. It's not a choice. Gambit and Jubilee are skilled, proficient fighters. But I am better." She's not bragging, just stating the facts.

"Laura."

She straightens. It's been a while since he used her real first name.

"What happened in Madripoor? With Daken?"

She adjusts her belt. "Haven't you talked to Gambit about it?"

"I'm talking to you."

So Gambit had not told Logan anything. He was still keeping Madripoor a secret.

"It's as Gambit told you. Daken captured me for Malcolm Colcord. I was held prisoner, but then Daken facilitated my escape. He also had my file. Colcord destroyed his own lab, killing himself in the process. Daken escaped, but I don't know what happened to him."

Logan seems unfazed by the summary. He continues to stare at her. "Did Daken hurt you?"

She puts her hands on her hips briefly, and then crosses them in front of her chest. How had Daken _not_ hurt her? Of course he had hurt her—hurt her so much. She remembers walking away from the fire, her clothes and skin burned away, her singed hair giving off the most terrible odor.

Then she understands what Logan is asking. He means did Daken _hurt_ her. "Why would you ask me that?"

A long pause. "It wouldn't be your fault if he did."

"Has he hurt you?"

Logan gets up from the bed but doesn't look at her. He rubs the back of his neck.

"I'm going to kill him."

He settles on her for a moment but seems unsurprised. "What?"

"I'm going to kill him." She hugs her arms to her chest to keep her body from taking over.

He shakes his head and turns away, mildly annoyed: his way of saying that the conversation is over. "You're not gonna kill him."

"You should have stopped him," she says. Almost desperate to keep this going, to keep him from walking away. "You had the chance. You wasted it."

"Excuse me?"

"Last year. Last year, you told me that you were able to disarm him, to cut the muramasa blades from his arms. If you were able to do such a thing, then you should have just put him down—"

"Hey!" Logan says. "Watch what you say." His tone is direct, Laura thinks, but not shocked. He doesn't grab her, doesn't get in her face.

She glances out the window. "Daken should have been stopped, and you're the one who could have stopped him."

"A lot people feel that way. A lot of people have awfully strong opinions, apparently. But I thought that I could count on you to see the grey areas." He pauses. "Daken's family."

"He's your child, not mine. And moreover, our relationship to him is beside the point. He is too dangerous. It's only a matter of time before he—" _If you had just done it last year_, she thinks. She pauses and decides to say what she wants, what she's wanted to say all along: "I am not you, and if you won't put him down, then I will."

Logan's scent changes instantly; his anger becomes too big for them, for the room. (Why is it always like this between them?) Now he takes her by the arm. "That's what you still think you are, huh? All these months and it's still this bullshit? Look at me."

She wrenches away from him.

"_Look_ at me," he says again, but this time he doesn't grab her.

She leans away from him but looks up.

"A lot of people have told me I should put Daken down. And a lot of those people said the same thing about you."

This statement doesn't have the effect he intends it to have—it doesn't shock her. She's always known that people questioned her right to exist; at certain times she may have even agreed with them.

"I worked with you," Logan continues. "We all did. We got you to a better place. We owe the same to—look, as long as Daken's alive . . ." He can't bring himself to finish the thought. "I know that you and Daken aren't in the same boat when it comes to this shit, and I know that hoping for him to turn around might be a total fuckin' waste of time. But kill my own son? Or let you do it?" He drops his hand to his side. "Grow up."

"You're right," Laura says. "Hoping for Daken is a total fucking waste of time."

He reaches again for her arm; she slips past him and heads for the door. Flings it open and runs right into Gambit. His hands are tucked under his arms. He's heard the entire exchange.

"X!" Logan says, lunging for the door. "X, get back here—" And then: "You got something you wanna add, Gumbo?"

She slips down the spiral staircase without listening to what Gambit and Logan are saying. She knows that Gambit will calm Logan down, but after that he won't do anything. He won't take sides, won't stand up for her. He'll smooth over the unpleasantness, all Gambit-like, so that this fight will be just a footnote in their grand Parisian adventure—not the center of everything.

Jubilee sits at the kitchen table, reading a magazine. She looks up when Laura walks in, and her expression is sympathetic. But she doesn't pry, doesn't say anything, and for this Laura is grateful. She looks down at the magazine and turns the page.

* * *

><p>Logan seems content to let their last conversation go—at least for the time being.<p>

X wishes for something more. She's usually not one of those girls who likes to _talk it out_, who likes to _clear the air_. That's Jubilee. But right now, she wishes she were more demonstrative, someone who could go up to Logan and say, _I didn't mean that_—even if that's a lie.

She meant everything. She wants to kill Daken someday, and she'll do it. Cut off his head. Drown him. Just as there are ways to kill her, there are ways to kill him.

But right now it might be too late for that. They're on the hill, overlooking Paris—they're about to strike. She's wearing her X-Force uniform and what she wants to say to Logan isn't _I'm sorry,_ but _this is who I am._ But she can't say that, not now, not when it's almost over. This is her life at its most honest: the hungry moment before their attack, when it's always almost too late.

* * *

><p>Daken left her in the mud. After he walked away from her, his skin knitting itself back together, she turned to find Gambit and Tyger beside her. Before she could speak, Tyger had wrapped Gambit's trench coat around her.<p>

"Christ, you're burning up," Tyger said, and she held Laura tighter, as though she was worried she might slip away. "Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Come on, let's get you out of here." Tyger spoke softly into her ear—as if she was telling her a secret.

Gambit was behind them; Laura sensed his reticence. He seemed to hang back. Like they needed privacy.

"How did you find me?" Laura said. She tried to turn to look at Gambit. But the question, she knew, was irrelevant. They hadn't really found her—not until it was almost too late. As always, she'd had to save herself.

Tyger pulled Laura along. She didn't loosen her embrace as she led her to a waiting car. "Let's just say that I've still got friends in this city. Here, here we are."

Back at the safe house, Tyger drew her a warm bath. Her skin had healed by this time, and it was new and soft, but her hair was rank and grimy. She soaked in the tub and thought, struggling to process everything, to piece things together. _I survived_, she thought. _I survived Daken. He didn't kill me. We stopped Colcord. Colcord can't hurt children anymore_. She knew this, but knowing it didn't make it true. Daken had left her with a kill list and more questions than answers. She had always wondered about him—wondered if looking at him would be looking at another version of herself, a version she secretly despised. But it hadn't been that simple.

In the bathtub, she unsheathed a claw and drew it across the soft skin of her inner forearm. When her blood dripped into the water, it swirled and stained the water crimson before fading to a nice deep pink.

"Laura?" Tyger said. There was a knock on the door. "Laura, I'm coming in to bring you a towel. I won't look."

Laura sat up and searched for a shower curtain to draw across the bathtub. There was none. Before she could tell Tyger to give her a minute, the door had already swung open.

Tyger set the towel down on the sink and glanced at Laura out of the corner of her eye. "I'll get you some fresh clothes—oh my God, are you okay?"

She searched Tyger's face. "I'm alright. I'm just—" She lowered her voice. "I'm just bleeding."

"Oh. _Oh._" Now Tyger looked more relieved than unnerved. "I'll get you something."

A few minutes later, she came back and left Laura a set of fresh clothes, some socks, a hair brush, and an unopened box of tampons. She came and left without saying anything. Immediately Laura wondered if she'd wasted an opportunity. What if she'd just told Tyger the truth about what she did to herself? Maybe the cutting would have horrified Tyger—but probably not. Perhaps Tyger would have been sympathetic and helpful. But now Laura would never know.

* * *

><p>When she and Gambit left Madripoor, Laura was at first glad for the monotony of water. She sat on the sailboat and watched the waves. Then she looked for dolphins and sharks.<p>

Gambit had been quiet. Once in a while he said things like, "Bet you're glad that's behind you," or "Can't wait for all that French cuisine." But mostly he just looked at the waves and felt, all of a sudden, like someone she barely knew. _Who are you?_ she wondered, almost disoriented at times.

She had rarely felt so disoriented after her X-Force missions. She remembered how James and Josh would shake from the adrenaline rush for hours afterward, how James even used to vomit sometimes. Dom would cast Laura an amused, knowing glance. "Some people," she'd say. "Some people are just so delicate. Not like you and me, X. You want a beer?"

On the boat, Gambit was quiet and calm. He didn't seem disoriented at all.

Laura tried to keep her leg from twitching. She counted backwards, trying not to think about the details of the last few days. Chewing on a hangnail, she looked down at her lap. Finally cleared her throat. "What are you and Tyger Tiger to each other?"

Gambit waited a beat. "Oh, we go back far." He chuckled. "Old girl and I have some history."

"What is she to Logan?"

Another pause. And then, quieter: "Friends, maybe. They also go back far. You'd have to ask him, though. Why, she say somethin'?"

Laura shook her head.

"Yeah." Gambit stretched his legs out and made like he was going to get up.

"Gambit?" She stared at him. _Who are you? _"How did you find me?"

He shrugged. "It's like Tyger said. She got an anonymous tip from an informant."

"So you think there's a mole in Daken's organization?" She tried not to take a deep, gulping breath.

He shrugged again and pulled himself to his feet. "It's possible. Anything's possible. Starving, though. Gonna go down below and boil up a can of soup. You want?"

"If there _is_ a mole in Daken's organization, then that person risked his or her life to save me. And they might still be in danger. Daken leaves no stone unturned."

"Hmm," Gambit said. He nodded at her and then slipped below deck.

A minute later, she went below deck too. He was already flipping on the stove. "Chicken an' stars." He held up a can of soup and waved his hand in front of it like he was on a cooking show. Then he turned around again, his back facing her. "Yum, can't wait."

She stood behind him. "There is another possibility. Daken might have phoned in the anonymous tip."

"Oh?"

"That would be very much like him. To keep control of the situation. Besides, he didn't want me dead. He could have killed me easily. But instead . . ."

"It's not worth thinking about. Don't obsess so much." Gambit popped the lid off the can and poured its contents into the saucepan. "Could easily microwave this shit," he said, "but I always liked it better over the stove. Even if it's kind of a bitch to clean up."

In the dim light, she could see that he looked much older than he usually did. There were slight creases around his eyes. She wondered how old he really was—he told her thirty-three, but he always made a joke about it, saying that since Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead at thirty-three, he wanted to be that age forever.

Laura crossed her arms and tried not to dig her fingernails into her skin. "Gambit, Daken would not have killed me. I am certain of this."

"Like I said, you shouldn't even waste your time on thinking about him, Laura. Trying to apply some kind of rhyme or reason—ain't worth it."

"His attachment to me was not sentimental. He used me as some kind of leverage. To get something from Colcord." She paused. "Maybe to get something from Tyger and you as well."

He kept stirring his soup and didn't turn around.

There was a long moment of silence. Laura rubbed her knuckles together and thought of things she might say next. Then she said something she hadn't planned at all. "You smelled like him. I didn't think about it at the time, but when you and Tyger found me, you smelled—"

Gambit straightened and set the spoon down on the counter with a soft _clink_. But he didn't turn around. His shoulders tightened.

She swallowed. Tried to think. She could not remember if Daken had smelled like Gambit—at the time she wouldn't have been able to take stock of his scent because too much was happening, too many other people were around them. She remembered, then, how Daken had looked—so sure of himself, so imposing. She imagined him hovering over Gambit, his hands on his neck, the space between them closing—

"I know what happened," she said, and as she said that, she felt as though she was lowering herself into a hole that would be impossible to climb out of.

"You don't." He glanced over his shoulder. Then he picked up the spoon again.

_Just leave it_, she told herself, but the words would not stop coming: "What did you do for him?"

Gambit's shoulders tensed. He turned to face her, and his skin was flushed. "Nothing."

"You went to him." As soon as she said this, she wanted to take it back. She could see that she was hurting Gambit—and the worst thing was that she could not stop. His face was tense, his eyes focused on the ground or at the wall—at anything but her. "Why did you go to him?"

He lurched forward, threw up his hands. "For Christ's sake—why do _you_ think? If you know, then why are you _asking_? You're worse than Wolverine sometimes, you know that?" He turned around again, and his hand grazed the metal saucepan. "_Fuck_," he gasped, jerking his hand away. He picked up the saucepan and shoved it into the sink.

He took a deep breath and braced himself against the counter. When his voice came, it was low and wounded. "Why are you asking me this, Laura?"

They stood like that for a long time. Finally Laura broke the silence, and when she did, she hated herself for asking the most detached of all questions. "How did you find him?"

A long pause. "He called us," Gambit said to the counter. He tapped the counter nervously—a former smoker looking for a fix. "Asked for me. Said he wanted to talk terms. Said he'd give you back and lay off the city if one of us went to meet him—and it had to be either me or Tyger. And I didn't want it to be Tyger." Another pause. "So I went. And then _voilà_, in comes an anonymous tip detailing your whereabouts. Guess he keeps his word, if nothin' else." He took another deep, visible breath and picked up a towel next to the stove. "I thought he wanted me to work for him. Thought he'd want to use my skills for his master plan. Never thought he'd want something so straightforward. But I guess people surprise you sometimes."

"He has a way of making you do what he wants."

Gambit pushed himself away from the counter and turned. Gave her a look as if to say that he did not believe her ignorance. "Laura. _I_ have a way of making people do what I want."

She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to hear what he was saying: _I went willingly._

"When you live as long as I have, you learn what's important. You learn to make sacrifices. Laura . . . I just did what I do."

She looked at up him, felt her chin quiver. Didn't want to follow his reasoning to its logical conclusion: that he had done this for her, _this thing_. That he had let Daken _do_ something to him. For her. For _her_. Because if he honestly felt that she was someone he needed to make sacrifices for, then he didn't really know her at all.

"A body is nothing," he said. Then his face crumbled. "A body is nothing. But a promise is all I got. You don't understand this 'cause you're young." He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Gambit."

"A promise is all I got. You're all I got. And—" His tears quickened. He reached out and touched a strand of her hair.

"Gambit," she said again. Her mouth was so dry it hurt to swallow. She couldn't speak.

"I just really don't wanna talk about it." He wiped his eyes again. His nose. A soft sob caught in his throat like a hiccup. "I just don't wanna talk about it anymore—"

He pushed past her and went into the bathroom. Closed the door behind him.

* * *

><p>So, the truth. It was more terrible than she'd imagined. Gambit filled in the gaps later—that he'd been injured when she'd been kidnapped, that he'd slipped away from the safe house, that Tyger didn't know the exact details of what he'd done—but he wasn't specific about what Daken had done to him. The details, she knew, would remain unarticulated.<p>

But she could fill in the details easily enough. Gambit was half right, half wrong. He had been alive longer than she had, sure. But she had taken more lives. And when you take so many lives, the dead stay inside you, make you older, make you able to see past yourself and into others. She knew what Daken had done to Gambit; she could imagine. She could hear his voice in her head. She understood how he must have taunted Gambit, made fun of his accent. Stood over him and grinned. And maybe he was nice once he got what he wanted, almost tender, just because he wanted to be. Touched his hair. Made Gambit feel that he had made the choice to be with him, even if had hadn't made any choice at all. Because that was how you made people churn.

The bones of her face: Daken's. She continued to cut herself as they traveled, more frequently, more intensely. If you asked her why she did it, she would have told you that she hated herself for killing so many people. But that was only half true. The whole truth was more complicated: If she hadn't been here, hadn't been alive, then perhaps no one would have been hurt. Least of all Gambit.

After Gambit shut himself in the bathroom, she stood in the middle of the room for a long time. Then she went to make sure the boat was still on course.

It was difficult to know what to do next—how to act or feel. _I will kill Daken_, she thought. She wanted to climb up to the deck and shout it at the open sky. Instead stood just there, arms at her sides, and waited for Gambit to emerge. "Gambit-" she said plainly, but she knew he'd never hear her above the engine. She walked over to the bathroom and turned the doorknob to find the door unlocked. Without announcing her presence, she opened the door.

He was standing there. As if he'd been waiting for her. He looked down at her, and he was crying. He dropped his hands to his sides. She held her arms out. He collapsed against her and sobbed into her shoulder, his hands pressed against the straightness of her hair.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Someone is touching her shoulder. Someone is shaking her awake. She opens her eyes. Logan's face is a few inches from hers.

"Hey," he whispers hoarsely.

She lifts her head. The room is grainy and dim. It's too early to get up.

"Come on," he whispers, gesturing for her to follow him out of the room.

She rolls over to see Jubilee sprawled beside her. After a moment of disorientation, she remembers everything: the fight at the subway platform, the woman. The hours of conversation she and Jubilee logged afterwards. They'd fallen asleep in bed together, their shoulders touching. Jubilee had drifted off in mid-sentence and Laura had fallen asleep soon after. She doesn't know if Logan looked in on them; in any case, he found somewhere else to sleep.

She slips out of the bed, careful not to wake Jubilee. Then she looks to make sure that the blinds are closed tightly. Then she goes into the hallway to see what Logan wants.

"Here," he whispers, handing over her shoes and jacket.

She takes them in both hands. "Where are we going?"

A smile spreads across his face. "Breakfast, of course."

She almost says something about Jubilee and Gambit, and then she realizes that this time is just for the two of them.

Outside it's still dark, but the sky and cityscape seem like they're poised and waiting for the sun to come up. Laura can see her breath. She wants to ask Logan why she's here with him, why they're out so early, but the streets are so quiet that talking seems indecorous. Occasionally a car passes by. Occasionally someone walks past them, someone who is going to work early or coming home late.

Laura thinks about last night. After she and Jubilee visited the Eiffel Tower, they saw as much of the city center as they could. They watched people. They watched a man sing on a street corner. They stopped to buy food from a street vendor. "I'm not hungry," Laura said, even though she was starving.

"Sure you are," Jubilee said. "Don't starve yourself on my account. I won't think you're rude or anything." She smiled. "To be honest, I don't miss real food. I don't even remember what it tasted like."

Laura couldn't tell whether or not Jubilee was telling the truth. That was the problem with knowing a vampire—her scent shifted quickly. But one thing she did know about Jubilee: she was hungry too.

She looked at Jubilee. Gestured to her own neck. "I can—"

"_No_, Laura." Jubilee took her by the arm and led her into a nearby alley. "Look, I was willing to keep your secret, to let this entire thing go. But if you keep doing this, I'm going to have to tell Logan." She paused. "I thought you said you didn't want to die."

Laura looked up. "I don't. I just—" She thought for a moment. "I don't mind. I would survive. And you wouldn't be hungry anymore. It is similar to what Logan does for you."

"No it's not, X." Jubilee set one hand on her arm. She no longer seemed angry. "I need to practice self-control. Besides, I don't want us to be like that."

Laura wasn't sure what Jubilee meant. "Okay."

"I don't want us to always be exchanging things. Depending on—I don't want that." She steps closer to X, the red flecks of her eyes glinting in the city lights. "It's bad enough that I'm with Logan because I have to be. But with you? I want to be with you because I _want_ to be."

"Okay," Laura said again, and followed Jubilee back to the street.

In front of a small café, Logan stops and glances back at her. "Guess we're too early," he says, shrugging at the dark windows. Someone is inside the shop getting things ready, but the place won't open for a little while.

"Should we go back to the hotel?"

"Nah." Logan walks over and sits on a brick ledge connected to the café. He pats the space next to him.

She sits down, tucking her hands under her legs. So Logan wants to talk. This surprises her; usually their talks aren't so premeditated. When she was in X-Force, he'd come up to her after a mission and tell her she did a good job and what to work on next time. His tone was sometimes casual, sometimes curt, but he never seemed to put a great deal of thought into what he said to her.

The morning sky slowly turns from twilight to early dawn. The sun is about to come up.

"I hear you, X," Logan says. "I hear what you're saying about Daken."

She squeezes her arms against her sides.

"I know he's bad. I know there's no hope for him. I know all these things. I've struggled to come to terms with this over the past year." He rubs his hands together and cracks his knuckles. "But I love him. He's my son. And that means that all logic is out the window." He sniffs. "I don't expect you to understand that. But someday you will. Someday you'll fall in love with somebody, have kids."

She won't, though. Of this she's certain. She wonders if Logan is just telling her this to keep her pacified.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I know."

"No, I'm sorry," Logan says. "I failed to protect you from Daken. I failed to contain him, and he hurt you. Oh, kid. There's nothing I can say. It's just . . . so shitty."

Laura doesn't say _I understand_. She doesn't think that Logan wants to be understood. She counts the long seconds that tick by. "Daken's mother. You loved her."

He nods. "I did."

"And she was the love of your life?"

He peers at her—the question amuses him—and then nods.

"She was your soul mate?"

"In a sense."

"What does that mean?" Laura says. "Yes or no?"

He stares at her, understanding that she's not letting him off so easily. "Yes," he says. "But it's complicated. I—I've loved a lot of women and I wouldn't say that any of them wasn't a soul mate." He pauses uncomfortably. "But she was special. We were together for such a short period of time and she was very young. But yet, she was—she was my soul mate."

If Laura tries hard enough, she can picture this woman. She always imagines her in rustic, untamed scenery, inaccurate as that may be. Daken's mother. The love of Wolverine's life. Laura is obsessed with "soul mates," with the love of one's life. She wonders if Daken's mother believed, when she met Logan, that everything would be alright, and that she would never have to worry about anything again.

"Then it's not enough," Laura says.

Logan looks at her.

"You can love somebody and it doesn't really matter," Laura explains. "You can meet the love of your life and things can still turn out bad."

"Hey." He turns and grabs her arm, but not roughly. Holds on. "Things didn't out turn bad. Look at me, kid. Things didn't turn out bad."

She doesn't believe him.

He shifts toward her but doesn't take his hand away. "Maybe there was a way things coulda gone differently. Maybe if Daken's mom hadn't died I'd have lived this nice life in Japan. And maybe Daken would've turned out good. Or maybe not. But you know what?" He waits a beat. "Instead, things went a different way, and I did what I did, and the things that happened to me happened, and that was how you came along. And I wouldn't wanna live in a reality where you don't exist."

She can't bring herself to make eye contact anymore. He's never said anything like that to her. She's so flattered that she's nervous. Worried he's not serious—even though she knows he is—worried she'll say or do something to wreck the moment.

"All of that is to say that I wish you wouldn't hurt yourself. Forget about Daken. He's not your responsibility—he's mine. I don't want you to get back into that old mentality again. You're a good kid, better than that. And besides, I didn't come here to talk about him but to find out how you were doing. I want you to think about good things."

Her leg twitches. "Is that why you and Gambit always talk about good memories?" She says this to distract Logan—and maybe herself—from the cutting. She's not sure that she can promise to stop hurting herself. All she can do is try to get a little better.

"Gumbo's sentimental," Logan says. "A big old sap. I guess I am too. It's an old-person thing." He clears his throat and right away his mood shifts. "Poor Gumbo. He asked me yesterday if he thought we'd ever have good times again. Y'know, I think you should stay with him."

"You're leaving again?" _And you're taking Jubilee with you?_

"You can come with us if you want," he says. But she realizes that his offer is ceremonial.

Right away she pictures traveling with them. They'll have to keep their journey confined to dark, cloudy countries. She and Logan will fight again. They can't not fight—all their good moments are just temporary truces. And then Jubilee will be caught in the middle. She'll have to choose sides.

The shopkeeper comes outside and begins sweeping the sidewalk.

"Logan?" she says. She has one more question. "So what you're saying is that you can have more than one soul mate?"

"Of course. What's all this talk about soul mates?"

She looks at the café. The windows blink on. "It's opening."

"Wait," he says. He sets his hand on her arm and nods at the street. "Look." Suddenly it's light. The world has turned just enough to bring them back to day. The streets have color again.

She looks at Logan, and he looks at their surroundings. She understands he hasn't shared a sunrise with anyone in a long time.

* * *

><p>This is the last day they will all spend together in Paris, and Laura tries to pay attention so that she can remember. It's really not a special day—they stay inside because it's sunny and because Gambit is recovering from his injuries—but Laura doesn't want it to end.<p>

Gambit lies on the sofa and throws ripe observations in Logan's direction. Sometimes he talks about Logan in third person. "He's awfully impatient today," he says to no one in particular. "He's like a border collie. Needs to be challenged."

And Logan, who doesn't seem any more impatient than usual, just looks up from the newspaper. "What the fuck are you talkin' about? You're hungover."

"You saw to that," Gambit says, leaning back on the sofa and closing his eyes with a great groan. "_Petite_," he says, his eyes flapping open when Laura stands over him. He focuses on her and his pupils are dilated. She understands that he took something for the pain—maybe Logan gave him something—and she worries that he'll blurt out something he doesn't want the others to know. But no, that's not him. If anything, Gambit will just talk about happier times, better memories. When he's inebriated or woozy he gets chummy, not sad, not brutally honest.

"Can't wait to show you Brussels," he says to her. "You ever been?"

"Hey Remy," Jubilee says. "Tell Laura about the time you tried to go skiing."

Gambit smiles slowly. "That's not nice. Not a nice thing to bring up when a man's hurtin'."

Upstairs in the bedroom, she and Jubilee talk for a while. Jubilee takes a magazine quiz and then asks Laura the same questions. Then she reads the results in the end. "'You're funny and sometimes neurotic. You always put your best foot forward and like to make others feel at ease.'"

"You must have added wrong," Laura says.

Jubilee looks down at the magazine again. Laughs and then gently thumps Laura on the shoulder. "Just go with it, X."

The things she talks about with Jubilee are no different from the things she sometimes discussed with other girls she's known—her friends from New York, from her time with the X-Men. But Jubilee is different. She focuses. She doesn't bring up things you haven't lived through, or people you don't know. She makes you feel like you're the only person, not simply a way to pass time before the next big event.

"You think you'll keep traveling with Remy?" she asks.

Laura wants to find the circled names on her kill list. She wishes she could be the sort of person who doesn't crave so much structure, or who doesn't have to know what's going to happen next. "I suppose."

Jubilee tucks her knees to her chest and looks thoughtful. "With Remy, you'll really see a lot."

And Laura knows what Jubilee is really saying: that despite everything, she's very lucky.

When darkness falls, they change their clothes and get ready to go out.

"Oh look, here they come," Gambit says when they descend the stairs. "All dressed up and ready to go. All ready to prowl for men."

"Are you jealous?" Jubilee says.

"Of you or the men?"

"Don't be creepy."

Logan looks up from a book. "Lotta poor unsuspecting bastards out there."

Gambit's looking better. Not as pale. He gets to his feet and reaches for Laura, taking her by the hands. He twirls her around. "You need your cards read. Here, sit down." He leads her to the sofa. On the coffee table he's got a deck of tarot cards. Usually he uses ordinary playing cards, but every once in a while he uses these special ones, the names of things printed in French.

"She doesn't need her cards read," Jubilee says. "Besides, those things don't tell you anything. It's like reading a horoscope, and X and I already did that today. Apparently we're both going to meet new people this month. And then we might or might not visit an old friend. And romance could happen."

"Romance can always happen," Gambit says. He sits down and hands Laura the deck. But he knows he's already shuffled it his way. "Maybe tonight you'll meet the man of your dreams."

Laura sits down next to him and shuffles. Their shoulders touch. He's warm and breathing and alive. Tomorrow they'll be alone again; that's the closest thing to _normal_ she knows. Being with Gambit is like going back to normal after a long vacation—even if that normalcy means chasing pirates or counting cards in Vegas. _Gumbo asked me if we'd ever have good times again_. She remembers the night he told her about Daken, how afterwards he'd climbed to the deck and lay outside under the sky. She brought him a blanket and sat next to him. He reached for her hand.

That past is hidden now—something just for them. He smiles. "You're next, Jubilee. _Mon Dieu_, you don't need a boyfriend. You need a paramour."

"Jesus Christ," Logan says, not amused, but no one's listening.

Gambit takes the top three cards from the deck and places them face down. But Laura already knows how this is going to end. This is what Gambit does: he shuffles the cards so that only the good ones end up in your spread. He'll keep the fool for himself and make sure the devil doesn't cross your path. He'll give you the sun. And the lovers. And then the world.


End file.
